Relations Between Terms

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Relations between terms are also important. Broadly speaking, there are two types of relations that can be established between terms, namely:

a. Relations of consistency when their spheres have at least one common element. For instance, if we think of the terms “person of female sex” and “child” we can say that they are in a relation of consistency, respectively of intersection, because some persons of female sex are at the age of childhood and some children are of female sex.

Other times, a term’s sphere is completely included in the sphere of another term. We then say that there is a relation of subordination between them. For instance, “person of female sex” and “mother”: all mothers are of female sex, but there are persons of the same sex as them who are not mothers.

b. Relations of opposition when the spheres of the two terms have no element in common. For instance, “woman” and “man” are in a relation of opposition because, at the same time and under the same relation, no woman is a man and vice versa.

Concretely, there are a few aspects when we build a point of view.

• The terms we use must have the same meaning throughout our construction. We have seen examples of situations when an ambiguous use of terms prevents the transmittal of the desired message. Let’s add another example. If we use the expression The leader is of opposite gender, then the term gender has the meaning of sex, which is not the same with the usual meaning of the term gender.

• If there is a relation of consistency between two terms, then they cannot be used as if they were completely different.

Like the terms gender disequilibrium and gender discrimination. Every discrimination is a disequilibrium, but not vice versa. These are normal differences and it would be abnormal to try to eliminate them. They do not lead to discriminations.

The two terms can neither be used as synonyms, nor as completely different words. We shall have to specify, either directly or contextually, when it is a discrimination and when it is just a difference.
Similarly, let’s consider acts of bravery and girls’ behaviour. There are bravery acts made by girls (and ones that are not done by them) and there are girls’ behaviours that are brave (as some are not). This is a relation of intersection, meaning that we can find a concrete human act that we simultaneously consider to be brave and to be part of girls’ behaviour.

If we considered acts of bravery and boys’ behaviour, what relation would there be between terms? A wrong approach, quite common under different forms, maintains that boys are brave and thus all acts of bravery are part of boys’ behaviour. But not all boys’ acts are ones of bravery, which means that the two terms are not subordinated.
They intersect because, as we have seen in the case of girls, some of the acts of bravery are made by boys and some are not; and some boys have a brave behaviour and others do not.

It is interesting to note that such a no differentiated use of language may form or transmit gender prejudices. In the analysed case, bravery identified with a manly behaviour produces/keeps the prejudice that only boys are brave and that girls are not characterised by such a quality.
The brave ones are an exception or, at best, have a manly behaviour.

 • If there is no connection between two terms, then there is a relation of opposition between them and they must be used as such. The most common mistake in this case is to work according to the part-whole model. If an organisation is made up of members, this does not mean that there is a relation of subordination between the terms organisation and member. Logically speaking, they are opposed, meaning that there is no concrete object that can simultaneously be an organisation and a member of the organisation.

Let’s suppose that someone says:

I am not interested in these problems! They confuse me more than they help me. I could maintain a point of view better when I did not know them. Now I have to think whether there is an intersection or opposition or who knows what!

Knowing a few technical details cannot confuse anyone. We naturally use our mother tongue, meaning that more often than not we use it correctly without deducing from ruled how to use words.

There are situations when we doubt; when we do not know whether it is right or wrong; when we feel that there is something wrong but we do not know what it is. These are the cases when knowing the rules helps.
We normally verify ourselves after we have built a point of view or planned an action. We try to see whether the presentation expresses what we wanted to say or do. We give it to someone who does not know what it is about and ask them to read it and say what it is about.

The verification, the revision, ensuring correctness cannot be made without linguistic rules, but even more so without the rules of logic.
 

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